Tracy Koa puts her hands together in gratitude as she and her partner David Tanksley arrive to find their home gutted by the Almeda fire in Talent, Oregon, U.S., September 12, 2020. “We lost everything but at least we have our family. Thank God we left when we did,” Koa said. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
TALENT, Ore. (Reuters) - Tracy Koa, a high school teacher in Oregon, was in her classroom last Tuesday preparing for the first day of school - which would be online due to COVID-19 - when her 13-year-old daughter called in alarm: A fire was coming, and they had to evacuate, now.
Koa raced home. From the driveway of her house in Talent, Oregon, she watched the cloud of smoke from the nearby wildfire turn to black from gray, a sign she knew meant homes were aflame. Within minutes, Koa, her partner David Tanksley and her daughter Seneca had packed their car with camping gear and their cat and joined a crawling line of traffic to evacuate.
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